


the courage to continue

by Ponderosa



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Black Male Character, Canon Character of Color, Closeted Character, Friends With Benefits, Infidelity, M/M, Nick Fury Feels, Off-screen Relationship(s), Old Friends, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:31:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even a man with a soft-edged definition of morals can lose a lot of faith in his country when he’s out doing the dirty work, but something Alex said to him early on has stuck with him all these years: “People come to embrace peace in two ways, Nick, they either walk through fire or they love someone who has.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the courage to continue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dylan_m](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dylan_m/gifts).



“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”  
\--Winston Churchill

*

_2008, The Helicarrier_

There are a lot of milestones in a lifetime. Most are personal--births and deaths, love and heartbreak--but once in a great while the whole world tips on its axis. A good portion of the planet right now is experiencing the same thrill Nick had felt in the summer of ‘69.

Nick on the other hand, is about as far from thrilled as a man can get. Sitting on a weight bench with a towel wrapped around his neck, he flips through the news feeds on the ship’s television and watches network after network rush to override programming with the breaking news. It only took four simple words for Tony Stark to become the biggest pain in his ass.

"Egotistical dumbass," he mutters. He kills the feed to call up Hill.

Her face pops up on screen. "I take it we were watching the same press conference," she says. "Did you want me to contact Coulson?"

Nick sighs. “Negative. Suit up. We're going to do a little recruiting of our own."

"Sir. Where are we headed?"

"Massachusetts." 

“Boston?” By the slight frown, she's running through a mental list of every name on file she can recall. Nick admires that about her. He’d leave her in charge if he didn’t think she might come in handy--Nick can be awfully persuasive when he needs to be, but a bright young woman who exemplifies the principles SHIELD was founded upon, well...there exists a bait, as Nietzsche said.

He glances at his watch. He’ll need to wash up. He can reschedule the important calls and do some work on the way. Anything else can wait its turn. "Meet me on the deck in thirty minutes."

During the flight, Nick reviews reports and considers the future. Contingency plans have been in place for an outing of this magnitude for a while, but he’d hoped like the devil that it wouldn’t happen on his watch. At least at this stage in the game he’s got a few folks he can turn to.

“So, who are we picking up?” Hill asks him, her voice tinny in the headset.

Nick’s gaze pulls towards the window, to the ocean gray and endless. “A friend of mine.”

“Sir,” Hill feigns surprise. Her sense of humor is getting drier by the day--probably from too much time spent around Romanoff. “I thought you didn’t have friends.”

“Well, lucky you, in four hours you’ll get to meet all one of them.”

Friends in this line of business are a liability, and while there are a handful of people Nick can count on Alexander Pierce is the one he’s known the longest. The CIA was his house when he first met Alex. It was the early 70s and he was still wet behind the ears. He found out quick that while soldiering was easy, spying sure as hell wasn’t, though he came a whole lot more naturally to the latter.

Even a man with a soft-edged definition of morals can lose a lot of faith in his country when he’s out doing the dirty work, but something Alex said to him early on has stuck with him all these years: “People come to embrace peace in two ways, Nick, they either walk through fire or they love someone who has.”

In the darkest hours, Nick has held fast to knowing that his job is to light the right kind of fires.

*

_1974, Buenos Aires_

It’s in the entrance hall of the Colón that he sees Alex for the first time in three years, and it’s a stone cold surprise. They’ve corresponded when situations have allowed by playing chess via postcard or telegram, speaking on the phone on the government’s dime, or occasionally through a proper letter couriered by the kind of staffer that gets shuffled around in the embassies at the whim of one agency or another.

Alex doesn’t own the room, not like the handful of local celebrities do. He does something far more difficult: he controls it. Flowing from one conversation to the next he leaves ripples in his wake with a compliment delivered here, a hand to an elbow there. Nick can see it all going down, and yet he isn’t wondering what SHIELD is doing in these parts because all he really has on his mind is the farewell fuck that’d left Alex panting out his name.

“You look familiar,” Alex says, when he ends up near Nick. His tone is just a shade past neutral towards inviting, and Nick can’t tell how long Alex has been aware of him. Alex raises his playbill in greeting, the paper tipped towards Nick like he’s trying to recall a name and place when there’s no way in hell either of them could’ve forgotten that send off. The woman on his arm smiles politely.

Nick gives his cover and company, and that’s more than enough for Alex to respond appropriately. “Of course, I remember now,” Alex says, and turns to his escort. In Portuguese, he says, “I helped one of his American engineers with a passport problem.”

“And I’m grateful for it,” Nick responds. In a heartbeat he’s made up his mind to take the opportunity that’s landed in his lap. “If it’s no trouble,” he says, offering the woman an apologetic smile before tipping his head towards the edge of the room, “I have another problem a friend at the embassy might be able to smooth over.”

Alex disengages his arm from the woman’s and kisses her hand as he tells her it may be a while. She doesn’t pout or complain, which leads Nick to guess she’s being paid by the hour. Neither of them watch her go.

With everyone busy showing off to the rest of society before the second act, it isn’t hard to find a spot to talk. They keep it vague regardless. “How’s the wife?” Nick asks.

“Sorry to miss the opera, not sorry to miss the flight.”

“Married a bird afraid to fly?”

“Married a woman who doesn’t like that the diplomatic corps don’t get any extra security, but I’m only here for a week or two. How’s business?”

“I like what I do.”

“You’re meant for more.”

“Don’t play me,” Nick warns, because they’ve been down this road before. The CIA hasn’t exactly done him wrong, but he’s starting to worry that he’ll only ever be a blunt instrument to them. Some days his handler treats him more like an asset than an agent. It's infuriating, and he doesn't need Alex rubbing salt in the wound first thing. “You're here for a while, so let's talk about it tomorrow.”

Alex's eyes are sharp though his smile is soft. “Why not now?”

“Intermission is almost over. Wouldn’t want to miss the ending.”

A hand lands on Nick’s shoulder. “For you,” Alex says, “I’d have cleared my evening.”

Nick pulls a smirk as an electric charge builds up between them. It prickles at the back of his neck, creeps along his skull. He has a hard time believing in coincidence. "I'm not convinced that you didn't," he admits. 

Alex laughs off the thought and gives Nick’s shoulder a firm squeeze. Time stretches like honey as Nick watches his tongue slide across his lip. Alex may have an infant waiting for him at home, but he’s hardly the first queen Nick’s known who can’t give up the life after putting on a ring. They’re going to end up in bed again. It’s inevitable.

“Tomorrow?” Alex prompts, brows raised as he waits for a commitment. 

“I’m free at noon.”

“Noon it is. If I’m not at the hotel, send out the search party. It’s rougher here than my neck of the woods.”

“Tell me about it.”

Nick walks him back into the crowd and considers whether or not he should mix things up tomorrow, but if this is SHIELD’s way to keep tabs on Agency meet and greets, they’re wasting their time. Nick’s not here to keep a low profile. This time around, he’s the diversion.

*

At precisely eight in the morning, a car pulls up to the two goons that have been shadowing Nick for the past week and just like that his part is done. His team has bagged its target, which means the other crew has finally recognized that he’s a decoy. He sips his coffee, feeling warmly satisfied knowing that things went off without a hitch, and watches as an old man scatters seed for the pigeons in the square. The birds squabble and shed feathers as they cluster around the old man’s feet.

The squeal and crash that echoes through the square makes a few of them flutter into the air. They drop right back into the fray.

Nick stands as the other people in the square start to point towards the plume of dark smoke. He folds his paper up and tucks it under his arm. Tomorrow the headline will blame the leftists for the grab while the auto fatalities won’t even get a mention.

He dumps the paper a few blocks away and flips up his collar. He’s got time, so he explores the city on foot. For all the political violence, it still sees a lot of travelers. Lots of cities are that way, he supposes. Ain’t nothing new under the sun. He ends up near the Sheraton just as the church bells chime twelve.

He rides the elevator ten floors up with his hands in his pockets. His fingertips are tingling by the time he’s rapping his knuckles on the door, and his mind’s running in high gear wondering how this will play out as the chain slides and it swings inward. Alex is on the phone, holding it against his hip with the trail of the cord snaking across the floor. He has the receiver cradled against his shoulder as he waves Nick in. A finger lifted before he takes hold of the receiver again says it’ll be just a minute.

Nick closes the door, and he fills in the other half of the conversation with conjecture as he drops his sportcoat on the bed. Alex doesn’t skip a beat or twist away when he draws close, and Nick puts his hands to those slim hips, nudges aside the coil of the cord with his chin to brush his mouth across the curve of a collarbone. Alex shivers but his voice stays steady as he mumbles a series of “Uh huhs,” and “Yeahs.”

He’s still on the line when he goes to one knee and then the other, setting the phone down on the carpet with a soft metallic ding. He switches the receiver to his left ear, holds it against his shoulder again and Nick shoves the hair out of Alex’s face as Alex quietly unzips him.

His breath lodges in his throat when his dick is freed, and he bites down on his lip to keep from making a sound as he rubs himself along Alex’s cheek. This is about five kinds of fucked up, but he doesn’t stop. He takes handfuls of Alex’s hair and thinks about feeding him a few inches to turn those listening noises into throaty, “Mm hmms.”

Before he can do just that, Alex sneaks out a wet lick and takes him in hand, jacks him nice and slow until he’s hard as he’s ever been. Alex’s open mouth flirts near the tip, and the look on his face is entirely a challenge up until the point that he’s juggling the receiver again and saying, “That sounds great, I look forward to it.”

Nick’s halfway down his fucking throat before he manages to hang up the phone.

After, when they’re done taking turns using the shower that’d been too narrow to fit the both of them, Alex tells him what SHIELD’s looking for in Buenos Aires.

It’s a whole lot more interesting than scooping former Hydra scientists off the street.

*

_1975, Santiago_

Nick washes blood off his hands in a chipped sink that’s fixed to the wall low enough that he has to nearly bend double. The pipes are so rusty the water doesn't change color from tap to drain.

There’s no mirror on the wall, just plaster breaking away in raw chunks. What's he gonna see on his face anyway, besides a scowl over the bad taste this back alley shit left in his mouth.

It wasn’t the mission itself that had him telling his handler he was done, it’s that he’s still doing the same damn shit with nothing to show for it. He doesn’t need a medal or a commendation, he needs to know the higher ups have a plan. That there’s more going on than placing bets on anything that ain’t red. He's plain sick of having to put a bullet in the head of the same assholes he'd trained to shoot five years back and then rinse and repeat.

He combs damp fingers through his hair, grown long enough now that with a pick and a bit of work it’d be fashionable. He tugs at the springy curls that always show up near the nape of his neck and tries to gauge whether or not he’s just made the biggest fucking mistake of his life.

But it’s done, and there’s nothing that says he and Alexander Pierce can’t simply be friends. Can't work side by side without personal history getting in the way. That he’s lying to himself has a certain sting--Nick has never been good at not taking what he wants--but if the chain of command gets messy, so be it.

Nick tugs a cap on, pulling it low and scoops his coat up. He hauls it on as he shoulders open the door, disappearing into dark wool and darker streets as he makes for the airport.

In six months he’ll make head of his division. In a year, section chief. By that time, Alex will be the Assistant Deputy Director of Clandestine Strategy in Central America.

*

_1976, Bogota_

It’s ugly, and it’s messy. He manages to make it out alive, along with Alex’s daughter.

Seeing them reunited is the first time he’s ever seen real fear on Alex’s face. Nick doesn’t hang around to watch him scoop the kid up and climb into the plane. Evac for him will be in three hours on the same dusty airstrip with the rest of the folks who qualify as less important staffers. He should be trying to keep them calm. Instead he finds the farmer who’s risking his neck to make a few greenbacks and trades a brand new pocket knife for a bottle of something with some real kick. It burns like hell going down.

The last thing he expects out of the shitfest is a promotion. But that’s precisely what happens after the debriefing and the press circus, when Alex puts away his public face and goes in for a meeting with the Director. He emerges with a look of grim thoughtfulness on his face that Nick’s only seen across a chessboard.

“You look ready to thrown down,” Nick says.

Alex rids himself of the crackling of storm clouds with a small shake of the head and a faint smile. “You know, your perspective changes when you have kids, Nick.”

*

_1979, Panama City_

There are few constants in Nick's life: death and taxes and Alex's disapproval of the way he runs missions.

"You treat assets as disposable." Alex doesn't look up as his pen flows across thick sheaves of paper. Per usual he won't commit the report to a typewriter ribbon. The letters on Alex's desk will get stuffed into a diplomatic pouch and ferreted onto a cargo ship. In six months paperwork will be forged, official notices will go out, and four families will think their sons died in a training accident. "I know what the Agency teaches but SHIELD operates differently."

Habit keeps Nick's face neutral. Once upon a time he would've expected Alex to be the type who'd want to be there to deliver the news himself. Nick doesn't blame him though. He doesn't envy the job either, glad to a degree that it'll be some other officer standing on a porch, hat in hand. He wonders what the excuse will be when someone shows up at his mother's door. He wonders if Alex would make an exception.

Alex slides the cap onto his pen with a precise click. "People are valuable, Nick, and they're more than just warm bodies."

"People are stone fools." Now the irritation toys at the corner of his mouth. Did Alex really think he didn’t care at all about the people under his command, American or otherwise? He points an accusatory finger across the desk as he starts to pace. "You're the one who likes to talk about changing the world. Well, hate to break it to you but people don't change."

Mid-sentence he’d noticed that Alex’s ring finger is naked. Something midway between sorrow and schadenfreude tightens his belly. It’s no surprise that the woman up and left him. She’d been smart, pretty, engaging--everything good for the papers, all part of the plan--but on top of that, she’d been surprisingly nice. A little nicer and Nick might’ve felt bad enough to stop fucking her husband.

Alex shuffles papers, calls in his secretary and has her cancel his afternoon. When he joins Nick to stand at the window, he doesn't show his annoyance. Nick can feel it though, and hear it when Alex insists that the important thing is that people _can_ change.

"Can and will are two very different things. People have as much will as they have brains. We can debate ethics until the sun comes up and it doesn’t change the fact that four men down just saved four hundred."

“I’m not questioning the outcome; taking out the General is a means to an end. I’m questioning the math. If you’d been a little more judicious with your planning that number could’ve been two,” Alex says. He lays a hand on Nick's shoulder. "You know, we don't have these discussions as often as we used to."

Nick lets a huff of breath escape out his nose. "Better for my blood pressure that way."

"You're staying for dinner, I hope."

"And after?"

Dinner is crab at the waterfront. Dessert is his hand on the back of Alex's neck and his neck tie looped around Alex's wrists. "You kinky fucker," he says, as Alex twists on the bed, his knees rucking up the sheets. If he wants Nick to fuck him so badly, he’s going to have to damn well work for it.

When he makes it onto his back, he gets a mouth full of fingers for the effort. His eyes are goading and pleading all at once as his tongue rolls in slow waves under the press of Nick’s fingers. Nick doesn’t have a goddamn clue which of them is more patient, but he does know that he’s just about the only person in the world that can make Alexander Pierce beg and mean it.

*

_1982, International Waters_

The plane hits a rough patch and the whole cabin feels like it’s going to tear in two. If this had been a commercial craft there'd be gasped prayers and hands curling desperately over the in-seat ashtrays, but the guys sharing the space with Nick just whoop and grin. Special operations teams--adrenaline junkies and fucking cowboys.

Nick shuts out their chatter as he composes a report in his head. What he puts on paper isn’t going to be seen by hardly a soul but a record of the situation will need to be made. His real report--or the closest thing there will ever be to someone outside this plane knowing how shit really went down--will happen later when he’s back in the States. Maybe over coffee, maybe delivered across a pillow even though he and Alex don't quite roll around as often as they used to.

"Hey, Fury."

He doesn't crack an eye. "Unless you’re gonna tell me we’re missing a wing and throw me a chute, I'm _trying_ to get some beauty sleep."

"You ever get sick of cleaning up other people’s messes?"

He wants to say, “More than you know,” but this time he’s pretty sure he’s the one who’s made a mess of things. But when a man’s options are limited… He spears the asshole trying to get a rise out of him with a hard look that shuts him right up. “Shit your pants, Jack? Maybe your buddy there will wipe your pasty ass if you ask nice.”

Laughter turns to more joking and then the bravado mellows and talk turns to homecoming: girlfriends and wives, how much the kids have probably grown.

Nick feels a fondness thinking of his extended family, but he isn’t tight with them and never has been. He has a few dozen nieces and nephews that know even less about him than his sisters do. Which is to say, whenever he manages to drop in on a family barbecue, they swarm around asking him about being a SHIELD agent, and he tells them what he can about diving shipwrecks or what it's like living out of a suitcase. They'll shriek delightedly and run around telling everyone it's like the FBI, only cooler. Starry-eyed kids: best kind of propaganda there is.

When it comes down to it, he doesn’t go in for that _where the heart is_ bullshit anymore than he believes in true love. Home is useless sentiment and twenty years behind him. His address is an apartment in the city with a bed, a couch, a television, and a telephone that hangs on the wall above the microwave. He even sleeps there some times.

“Fury,” one of the shooters says, and Nick’s ready for the question to be about whether or not he’s secretly married, or if he lives a hundred feet underground in a secret SHIELD facility or some other shit to try and get him wound up, but the guy’s simply offering him an extra blanket to use as a pillow. Nick takes it, and maybe even cracks a smile when the guy tells him, “Be needing all the beauty sleep you can get or you’ll be on the porch the minute your woman sees you.”

Nick bundles the blanket up and makes himself comfortable, says, “You’re a good kid, you know, looking out for your momma like that.”

The team starts whooping again just in time for another round of turbulence.

*

Nick slides his key into the lock at a quarter to midnight. The door sweeps opens with a whisper across plush carpet. It’s quiet as the grave inside, a hush so thick it’s like stepping into another world. The strap of his duffle cuts into his shoulder, and it's a relief to ease the weight of the bag to the floor. He gets himself a drink of water, sips slowly at it as the quietude sinks into his bones.

Alex is a silhouette on the balcony. 

The temperature outside is about fifteen degrees warmer than inside the apartment, the heat of the day still lingering in the thick air. Alex is perched at the rail in his shirtsleeves, his arm draped over the wrought iron and a wineglass dangling from his fingertips. Nick joins him, hunching down to look across the lights scattered across the city. They’re high enough up the sounds of the street are muted and distant.

“So, am I out on the street?” he asks. The wind snatches away half his words, tosses them out into the night along with a flurry of ash from the end of his cigarette. “Disavow and deny and all that shit.”

“You know I don’t have the authority.” Alex swirls his wine lazily. It's a red that's dark as blood. Nick pictures the glass slipping free and tumbling away. “You screwed me on this one, Nick.”

“Yeah, I did. And I find it difficult to believe you didn’t know precisely what you were signing the both of us up for when you handed me that fucking shitshow.”

“Well--” Alex turns to face Nick and his tongue flashes over his lip before he swallows the last of his wine. “No matter what I knew or didn't. This is how it ends. You and me. You’re being transferred out of my hands. My best guess is you’re headed to Europe next.”

“About time, I suppose.”

“Probably.” Alex nods his head towards the open french doors and Nick follows him back inside. It’s a nice pad, though Alex is probably due for an upgrade. “How’s your Russian?”

Nick lines up behind him in the kitchen, says, “Not as good as my French,” into the hair curling at the nape of Alex’s neck. His body feels heavy, and not just from the hours long debriefing or the cab ride that followed. He nuzzles aside Alex’s crisp collar to press a kiss to skin. There’s something to be said for breakup sex. “Who in the hell is going to be holding my leash? If you say Murphy, I fucking quit.”

After a few more kisses wet his neck, Alex twists around, elbows settling on the top of the bar counter. His gaze holds to Nick’s, doesn’t waver in the slightest even as he says, “No one.”

Here, Nick lets the surprise show. "They're bumping me up the ladder?"

"The both of us. Director made the call as soon as they set you free. It was a close one, but you know how it is. When your back is to the wall, the best course of action is to double-down.”

Nick whistles under his breath. He pushes a leg between Alex's thighs as the implication floods his veins like warm honey. Maybe this was less breakup sex and more celebratory sex. "Getting that corner office?" he asks, mouth grazing near Alex's ear.

Now Alex smiles. He pushes Nick's coat off his shoulders and waits for Nick to shake it free. As Nick presses close again, Alex’s arms slide around Nick and up his back. "Guess you'll have to visit and find out."

The buttons of Alex’s shirt come apart under Nick’s fingers as they kiss. He’s about to go to his knees when Alex stops him and ushers him towards the bedroom. “This might not be the best idea,” Nick says, staring at the bed. He pulls off his shoes and unbuttons his pants. "I might fall asleep on you."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," Alex says. He puts a hand on Nick's chest and presses gently.

The moment his back is flat on the mattress Nick fights the urge to pull Alex to lie on top of him like a living blanket. But if Alex is in the mood to give him head he's not going to say no. His eyes are hooded as he watches Alex slink down. The feathery mass of Alex’s hair obscures half his face, but Nick can see where his lips are licked obscenely wet. He bites his own lip as Alex’s mouth closes on him, sweet and warm and so soft he can hardly stand it.

“Baby, you’re going to be the death of me,” he says, hands flexing. 

“Don’t I know it.”

Already Nick feels less weary if not any less tired. He crams another pillow under his head to watch the lazy bob of Alex’s head and the flex of lean muscle in his upper back. Everything about the moment is soft and pleasurable, just about the polar opposite of the last two months. He stretches an arm out to rest a hand on Alex’s shoulder and tries not to think about how things will change. They work so well together--and have for so many years now--it’s as hard to conceptualize the future as it is to remember precisely how things were in the past.

So he focuses on the moment as best he can. On the wet sounds and Alex’s breathing and the gritty burn that comes when Alex grips him firmly and works his cock with purpose. He slips his hands into Alex’s hair and pushes-- Pushes up with his hips to fuck into the tight tunnel of Alex’s fingers towards the tease of his tongue. Pushes down with his hands to get Alex moaning and enjoy the fight before he gives in and finishes the job with enthusiasm. Pushes out a ragged groan that’s still echoing in his skull when finally he _pulls_. He’s no stranger to taking what he wants or taking control, but drawing Alex to him is more than that. Nick rolls half on top of him and returns the favor with a rough hand and slow kisses, and when they’re both sated and sticky he realizes how very much it’s like stepping onto the edge of a high cliff and having faith instead of a chute.

*

_1983, the corner office_

They fuck like they're making up for lost time. Like things have changed on some fundamental level, a gravity shift that has them relearning how it is they fit together. It's different knowing his trajectory isn't tied to Alex's anymore. Strange to be functioning as a peer again instead of an iron right hand.

It's only been a month since Nick has had to get accustomed to people calling him ADD and all the paper pushing that’s come along with the job. Soon enough he’ll be on a plane getting up close and familiar with a whole other face of the Cold War where the tech popping up in the Motherland is cause for concern.

Nick hasn’t felt uncertainty like this in a long time. He makes up for it with his hands on Alex’s skin, something familiar enough that it helps quiet the nervous flutter in his gut. He reminds himself this isn’t a goodbye, not yet.

"I’ll miss this," Alex says, proving that as usual, they’re both thinking along the same lines.

Nick's response is to bend him over the desk. To kiss a path down his spine and pretend that he hadn't seen the loss brimming in blue eyes. 

"You’re getting softhearted," Nick teases. But the truth is he feels it too, surprised at the melancholy. Coming on ten years is a long time to have worked so closely together.

"I’m getting old," Alex replies, laughing. His tie trails over the blotter like a snake. Nick gathers the silk in his hand.

They don't talk much after that.

*

_1984, London_

The windows of the cafe are foggy and opaque. Outside, it’s a downpour. Inside, it’s warmth and chatter and a full house of folks grouped up in twos and threes.

Nick takes notes in the crossword section of the paper. Across the table from him, Victoria goes through the classifieds line by line.

He taps the eraser ends of his pencil against the table. His head feels full of too many things at once. Keeping dangerous technology out of the hands of guerrillas was a whole lot easier than this new world order shit.

“You seem distracted.” Victoria ’s keen eyes watch him over the rim of thick glasses. She’s paused halfway down the column, her thumb subtly keeping her place on the page. The newsprint is smudged there, the letters smeared like they’re trying to slide away.

Something eats at him. He knows it’s not the people driving him up the wall. After so many years in the game, he filters the room and its conversation unconsciously. “I need to clear my head,” Nick says.

He goes outside, stepping beyond the eaves into the rain that’s coming down so hard it’s tough to breathe. He’s soaked to the bone in an instant. The street and sidewalks are empty. He’s standing here alone and there are a hundred roads for him to follow, as many as there are leads and fucking fragments of shadows where bad things happen to good people. It’s been creeping up on him for months, but this is where it smacks him in the face.

Alex isn’t here and he’s never going to be here. He’s got his attention trained on the Director, and the man in charge wants Nick here, taking over Central and Eastern Europe. It’s a mix of freedom and responsibility and raw fucking potential that for a moment Nick’s legs feel like they’re going to give out right from under him. He’s never going to be on ground turning assets and in the thick of things, not in the way he used to and not with the same sort of deniability. But he's worked hard for this. His _mother_ worked hard for this. She didn't hold down two jobs and send her baby to a military academy for him to spend his life in the trenches.

Nick laughs, a short hard sound that’s drowned by all the goddamn rain. This is a different board he’s playing on now with much bigger targets. Hell, he himself is a much bigger target. It’s exhilarating and he’s got to get his head straight or it’s more than his ass on the line. 

Victoria hovers in the doorway calling his name.

“Find me a new coat,” Nick says, as he pushes past her and into the back. He moves quickly through the kitchen to the stock room and its very cleverly hidden stairs. The patter of drops falling from the hem of his slacks accompanies the scuff of his shoes along old stone.

“I’m not your personal assistant,” she says, close on his heels. She follows him down the spiral to where the analysts are poring over the latest reports.

Nick turns to her. He glances pointedly at the newspaper still tucked under her arm. The pencil marks in the margins says she’s decoded something.

“Would you like to be?”

*

_1985, Gdansk_

Late on a Tuesday, Alex calls him out of the blue and says, "I'm getting married." It’s an unsecured line but the statement isn’t code for anything. Still, Alex’s morning rough voice carries meaning beyond face value--a question maybe, or something resembling an apology.

Nick twists the coil of the telephone cord around his index finger. His office is little more than four walls and a flower box that blocks most of the light from the narrow basement window. It was supposed to be temporary. Nick hasn’t bothered to trade up. Running things out of this place is a good barometer of what fuels the agents under his command. Most of them don’t bat a lash, in it for cause and country, and the ones that do he’s had Victoria put tabs on. Surveillance these days is getting easier and easier.

“Well, are you going to say anything?”

Regret drags Nick’s stomach towards the floor. "You know I can't make it, Alex."

The line crackles, a sigh buried in the noise. "I know, I just-- I didn’t want you to wonder about the lack of invitation.”

“How’s Jennifer?”

“More excited about a new dress and getting her makeup done than having a new step-mother.”

“At her age that’s no surprise. My sisters’ kids are the same way, they’ll take any excuse for a new pair of shoes and a handbag to match.” Nick wants to say more, to tell Alex about the shit they dug up just outside the city. He’ll learn about it soon enough, but the thrill of discovery is still rich in Nick’s veins. R&D was going to have a field day with the compound. Nick holds his tongue, interrupting the growing silence with a quiet, “Give her my best, would you.”

“Of course.” More silence stretches between them. “If I hadn’t known you couldn’t make it, I’d have asked you to be my best man.”

Nick smirks at the lie. It’s not that Alex has better friends--for all the numbers in his Rolodex, he’s surprisingly guarded. Even in a city as corrupt as DC there are simply certain kinds of history you don’t flaunt when you know the cameras will be rolling.

In the end though, Nick does make it. He pulls a whole lot of strings and trades in a few favors and gets there the morning of. He watches from the back of the church. There are upwards of four hundred guests packed into the pews. The bride is half their age. Nick wonders if she knows she's a beard. 

*

_1988, Berlin_

Casual stopped being his thing about five years back, but one thing leads to another and he starts seeing a light-skinned airman with a soft smile and a Bama accent. It’s a nice kind of distraction even if it goes nowhere fast--no surprise, really, what’s he gonna do, marry the guy? In the end, the man's not career, and when he doesn't re-up Nick moves on. He's done a lot of moving on in his lifetime.

A little heartbreak doesn’t really slow him down, but the hits keep coming. The flowers arrive before the communique. The card is typed yet he imagines the letters as they would be written out in Alex’s careful hand, a flow of dark ink that swoops and curls with a dramatic slant.

_Your mother will be missed. Dinner in her home remains one of my fondest memories._

Dinner at his mother's house had been a disaster. She’d spent the whole time grilling Alex about how he overworked her son, and why wasn’t Nick getting hazard pay, and didn’t he know Nick had always been a bit of a loner. Christ almighty, she’d even smacked Nick and chastised him for not bringing his friend home sooner while Granddad barked a laugh from the head of the table.

Alex though had held his own, navigated all her questions and accusations like it was just any old bit of polite conversation. At the doorstep with a taxi idling at the curb she’d kissed Alex on the cheek and then Nick, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her they weren’t dating. That it wasn’t like that between them, even if maybe, sometimes--

Nick shoves the vase aside, stomach squeezing into a hard knot. He can remember her perfume, the same heavy floral scent she dabbed on every day of her life.

He calls his sisters, listens to them wail while the space under his ribs feels hollow. The numbness follows him into the rest of the week and he buries himself in his work while the date of the funeral looms. When the date passes by, he doesn’t notice, too concerned with holding things together when MI-6 suddenly stops all communication. He doesn’t have the patience for the politics, not like Alex, but strong-arm tactics do the job quickly.

The Brits aren’t happy about it, and it leaves a tension in the air that mixes with the general fog of unease in the European theater. Assassinations and all kinds of nasty surprises hide around every corner, and it takes all he’s got to get things to run smooth under his command. He burns some bridges in the process. There’s a body count. It’s as minimal as he could risk.

A year later, when the Wall comes down, Alex is the first person he phones.

"When are you coming home?"

Nick ignores the question since he doesn’t know the answer, and besides, there’s only so much he can say. "How's the wife?"

"Good."

"Kids?"

"A handful. The twins are talking, and would you believe Jenny’s on the planning committee for her junior prom?"

"Time flies."

"Yes it does," Alex says.

Nick leans against the graffiti laden wall of the booth. “You know, I may have been wrong.”

“About what?”

Blocks away, he can hear the cheering. It stirs something in him for the first time in a very long time. “Maybe people _can_ change.”

"Nick, I never thought I’d see the day. Call me on a secure line when you can. We should talk about the future."

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Call me on secure,” Alex says, and hangs up.

When he makes it back to the States, he’s down one eye, Victoria's in the ground, and his arm’s in a sling, but the corner office is his.

There’s a box of chocolate waiting for him--fancy shit, perfect squares patterned with gold-leaf. The card with them reads, “Welcome home, Director Fury.”

*

_2008, Nantucket_

Twenty years can pass in a heartbeat.

Or maybe it’s just Tony fucking Stark and his big mouth that’s made Nick’s life flash before his eyes. Sure, it was only a matter of time, and he’s put one of his best men on it, but he’s getting too old for this shit.

He scowls as he steps off the helicopter. The mist is heavy enough in the air that in a few steps it’s begun to gather in drops on his coat.

He gestures for Hill to cut the engine and doesn’t bother with hellos and how are yous. He lays out the offer without reserve. He doesn’t have a winning hand, just a whole lot of history to bank on.

"Secretary to the World Council,” Alex says, pausing in the middle of throwing a stick. The Setter at his feet pants heavily, paws splayed and ready to run. “You must be joking."

“I wish I were. You spent ten years in Congressional Affairs”

He throws the stick down the beach and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his peacoat. "Yeah, and for the past ten, I’ve been enjoying retirement. You should give it a try yourself. I’ve got a spare room."

"I need someone I can trust."

"Someone you can trust? Or someone you can predict? You know the Council has never liked me. What about Hernandez?"

"Fuck Hernandez, I want you on this. The Council doesn’t need to like you, they only need to listen to you."

The wind whips Alex's hair into his face. "With that attitude, I suppose they like you even less," he remarks.

“You can say that again,” Nick mutters. He turns to face Alex square. The sound of the waves is like white noise, all hiss and crash with no rhythm. “You can't tell me you're out of the game entirely. If you were you would've retired somewhere warm."

Alex laughs. His dog trots back and he takes the stick from her without a struggle. "Did you know that the Secretary of Defense has a house two miles that way?" He points up the coast with the bit of driftwood.

“I did. The man doesn’t exactly invite me to dinner though. Senator Stern isn’t a fan of my sunny disposition either.”

The smile slowly fading from his face, Alex turns the stick over and over in his hands. His eyes narrow thoughtfully. “What’s your plan, Nick?”

Nick folds his arms across his chest. That’s why he’s here, isn’t it? Because on some level it doesn’t feel like he has one. It’s a shame really, that he can’t just give up. Retirement doesn’t sound half bad. He could just stand here with Alex at the edge of the ocean and the world could pass them by. Cozy little beach house, friendly dog, they’d be just another pair of old queers comfortably fading away into obscurity.

It’s damn tempting.

“Come with me“ he says, before the longing worsens. He nods towards the helicopter. “We’ll get you your clearance back and talk shop.”

“That’s not much of a carrot.”

“Well I didn’t think a bottle of cab and a blowjob would do the trick.”

“It would’ve been a far better opener for negotiation.”

“You see why I need you?” With a gesture, Nick tells Hill to get the bird going again. He turns to watch the waves as a cloud of sand gets kicked up by the blades. When it settles, he’s still frowning. “The world is burning, Alex. The fire’s only getting worse.”

Alex passes the driftwood covered in sand and slobber to Nick and pats him on the arm as he pushes past. “I want a bigger office,” he says, and with a sharp whistle, he brings his dog to heel.


End file.
